


Till We From Winter Wake

by aban_asaara



Series: Strange Places: Fenris and Amabel Hawke [16]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Mutual Pining, Romance, Self-Indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-06-24 23:58:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19734280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aban_asaara/pseuds/aban_asaara
Summary: This is the last time Hawke buys a book from the Black Emporium.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Approximately a million years ago, [JadeLavellan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jadestone/pseuds/JadeLavellan) sent me the prompt “kalotypography (beautiful printing)” from that Lost Words prompt list that was making the rounds on tumblr. I started something then but only returned to it recently, and it promptly turned into this really elaborate excuse to put my OTP in fancy clothes.
> 
> Many, many thanks to [theherocomplex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theherocomplex) for beta-reading, and to [lucyrne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theungenue/pseuds/lucyrne) and [bettydice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BettyKnight/pseuds/bettydice) for cheerleading! <3
> 
> This story contains some mild eye horror and animal harm (nothing too graphic, but just in case!)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>   
>  Moodboard by the ever so lovely [Lucyrne](https://lucyrne.tumblr.com/post/186607437967/the-pages-are-soft-under-her-fingers-as-she) <3 

Hawke looks up from the poetry collection open on her lap. “Done already?” she asks as Fenris slots the book he borrowed— _Qun, Gurns and Steel: Military Conflict in a Post-Blight Thedas_ —back into its spot on her shelf.

“A fairly quick read,” he answers with a shrug, and Hawke bites back a laugh—even the title is a ponderous slog, as far as she’s concerned. Fenris tilts his head to read the spines, pulls a volume from a shelf and puts it back after skimming the back cover. “Any recommendations? Fiction, perhaps?”

She dog-ears her page and slides off the couch. “Well, I’ve just acquired the annual edition of _The Randy Dowager_ , if you’d like,” she quips, earning herself a snort. “Wait, I found just the thing at the Black Emporium the other day.”

Fenris chuckles. “Not ominous in the least.”

“Hush, you,” she retorts, then jogs down the stairs to retrieve her new acquisition from the desk of her study. She blows a cloud of dust off the cover, then grins up at Fenris as she climbs back up the stairs two by two. “Look at this beauty,” she announces over the thud of the tome on the table.

“A beautiful volume.” He runs his fingers on the embroidered silk of the binding, then examines the flower pattern embossed on the gilt, gauffered edges. “ _Tales and Legends of the Empire_ ,” he reads, arching one eyebrow at the blackletter script.

Hawke sits down next to him. “Have to give it to the Orlesians, they do have a knack for stories.” She unclasps the ornate metal fastenings; the worn spine creaks as she opens it, a warm, welcoming sound. The comforting smell of old parchment and ink tickles her nose. “I had one just like this when I was a kid, but nowhere near this beautiful,” she continues, flipping through the pages: here a chevalier raising his sword at a High Dragon, there a lady tumbling to the floor, one hand around her throat and a poisoned cup in the other. “I read it so often the binding fell apart.”

One corner of his mouth hooks into an amused smile. “Ah, I see what fate awaits your _Randy Dowager_ , then.”

A startled laugh bubbles out of her at that, and she gives his shoulder a playful shove. “I know what I’m about, serah. And there’s a reason no one ever reads those military histories of yours twice, you know.”

He smirks. “Or once.”

Hawke levels her sweetest smile at him and closes the book. “Well, if _that’s_ how it’s going to be,” she starts, pretending to rise to her feet, “I’m just going to keep all the _fun_ books to myself—”

Fenris catches her wrist. “Hawke,” he says, half-teasing, half-apologetic. His hand is very warm; his eyes are dancing, but the glimmer dims when her own gaze flicks to the square of scarlet silk tied around his wrist.

He lets go.

Hawke sits, cheeks blazing. How long has it been since they’ve last sat like this together, bent forehead to forehead over a book? So much has passed between them since, and yet a familiar warmth threatens to bloom inside her, aching as it spreads. Her pulse quickens, as though this was just another reading lesson, as though anything could still happen—

 _Stop it, you lovelorn fool_ , she chides herself, then opens the volume again to give herself some countenance. The pages are soft under her fingers as she riffles through the book, reading the blackletter titles: _The Enchanter and the Nug_ , _The Fade Empress_ , _The Seeled Princess_ …

She blinks at the latter. “Huh, shouldn’t that be _seal_ with an _a_? Unless it’s an Orlesian thing—”

“Uh … Hawke?”

A note of something strains his voice. Looking down, Hawke sees the letters printed on the page swirling around her fingertips, curlicues and flourishes dancing in swooping arabesques as if the ink were liquid again, spilled into water and curling into wispy wreaths.

Fenris reaches for her hand. His fingers close around hers, but Hawke feels nothing, and then she’s—

 _Elsewhere_.

Her feet sink into thick, plush carpet: the large band of crimson cascades down the steps of the dais before her, unfurling beneath the buckled and jeweled shoes of the people—so many _people_ —standing with her in a long procession. The room sweeps high above her in ornate columns and sloping white arches, the mouldings of the domed skylight gilded and painted with flowers and winged lions. Pairs of guards stand at attention every few paces, facing each other across the room.

The _throne_ room, to be exact.

The last line of defence between her and whoever is on the dais is a man wearing a large floppy hat. Hawke considers running, but one of the guards is already eyeing her suspiciously as she whips glances around. To the Void with it, then. She stands on tiptoe and cranes her neck, ignoring the dirty looks as she scans the crowd for a shock of silver hair—

The chamberlain standing at the bottom of the dais clears his throat, Floppy Hat dismissed. “His Royal Highness Prince Jocelyn de Valbois will receive Mademoiselle’s gift now,” he says, his Common thickened by the round vowels of an Orlesian accent.

_Whose what now?_

He ushers her towards the dais with a flourish. Hawke steps forward, patting herself down frantically in hopes that a gift suitable for a prince is somehow hiding in her pockets, but all she manages to unearth is a stale biscuit and a few coppers.

“Well?” presses the masked man on the throne.

Hawke wipes the crumbs off her hand before dipping into a curtsey. She stays low, head bent, skirt pinched between her fingertips, and wills the carpet to suck her up. Now would be a good time for another Qunari invasion. Maybe even a Blight.

No such luck, though. “Do not be so nervous, _très chère_ ,” the prince says genially. “Come, show us what you bring.”

She risks a glance at him through her lashes. Whatever lies behind the mask, she catches herself assuming he’s handsome underneath. He sits in a studied sprawl, one elbow propped on the tasselled arm of his throne, long legs crossed at the ankles. Broad shoulders fill a doublet of burgundy brocade, stiff with gold thread, and his mask is simple, at least by Orlesian standards: a smooth oval of solid gold, with a garnet cut cabochon gleaming viciously on the brow.

Hawke opens her mouth, her mind blank as fresh parchment. She has no idea what she will say till the words tumble from her lips: “A poem, Your Highness.”

Whispers rise from the procession behind her, but the prince quiets them with a flick of his hand, and the throne room falls silent at once. “A poem,” he repeats, in a tone that Hawke can’t quite decipher. No one has offered him poetry as tribute before, that much is clear. “We are all ears.”

Her pulse rides so high in her throat it might be all the prince hears when she opens her mouth, but she knocks her heels together, squares her shoulders and lifts her chin.

Then she recites the first poem that alights in her mind:

_A-roving the wild things go_   
_Ever uphill the black bear climbs_   
_Woods stir after the halla doe_   
_And birds fly to northern climes_

_But even birds return in spring_   
_So till we from winter wake_   
_Upon your hand I long to rest_   
_And these wilds at last forsake_

Hawke lowers herself into another curtsey as silence greets her poem. _Should’ve danced the bloody Remigold instead_ , she thinks, instead of reciting some maudlin verse she imbibed with too much wine on a forlorn night, and _flames_ , didn’t even the blighted book where she found it deride the “quaint, crude imagery typical of the Fereldan pastoral”—

“What is your name?”

Hawke blinks up, startled. She hadn’t noticed the prince making his way to her, but his silhouette now towers over her from the top of the carpeted steps. “Hawke,” she answers, mouth dry.

For some reason this seems to amuse—or please?—him. “Hawke,” he repeats, drawing out her name as one might savour the first sip of a newly uncorked wine. The garnet flashes red under the skylight. “How … _perfect_.”

Someone in the crowd titters, but before Hawke can ponder his meaning, the prince stretches one gloved hand out to her. Better not risk insulting him: she only needs to keep her head attached to her neck long enough to find her way back to the library of her Kirkwall estate, so she wills her trembling fingers still and slips her hand in his.

His grip is firm as he leads her up the steps. “Friends,” he addresses the crowd, covering their linked hands with his palm, “the Maker looks favourably upon us today, and He has given us the greatest gift of all: love! Tonight, we celebrate our troth, and you are all invited to partake in our joy!”

The crowd erupts into applause. “Wait— _what?_ ” Hawke blurts out as the prince bends his mask to her knuckles in a farcical baisemain. She tries to tug her hand free, but he clasps her wrist with a strength belied by his genteel airs. “Your Highness, I’m a terrible, _terrible_ match, I assure you,” she starts, her voice rising to a taut shrill. “I’m not even a _real_ noble, see, I grew up on a farm, and I only have a modest estate to my name, hardly more than a hovel, really—”

Jocelyn laughs, somewhere behind the hard glimmer of his mask. “Ah, but we care not for estates and titles, dearest. All the land is ours, and by our troth you will be made a _princess_.”

Enough. The Fade eddies around her fist; one force spell and she can send him flying through the skylight, but her hand stills when she spots one bare face among the masks in the crowd.

Fenris flicks meaningful glances at the guards. _Don’t_ , his eyes say, plain as words, so she lets the strands of magic unravel and drops her hand back to her side. Alright, so _maybe_ murdering a prince in front of half his court is not the best course of action.

She plasters a smile on her face instead. “Your Highness does me too much honour,” she squeaks.

Jocelyn gives her fingers a squeeze. “Bring our betrothed a seat,” he commands. An upholstered chair—one of his gifts, by the looks of it—is hauled to the dais, and Hawke is forced to sit by his knee, the chamberlain smoothing the drape of her skirt with a quick tug.

At the bottom of the dais, Fenris watches her. His face gives nothing away.

***

Being a princess, as it turns out, is not all it’s made out to be.

No breaks allowed, for one. Even the miners of the Bone Pit enjoy more rights under Hubert’s disinterested management, Hawke saw to that, and now she’s squirming in her _bergère_ , shifting her weight from one numb buttock to the other. The gifts pile up in a corner of the throne room as they greet visitors one by one, a pair of scribes bustling about to ensure everything is accounted for. There’s no end to the procession of comtesses and marquis come to pay their respects, and the endless string of names and titles falls right through her memory as water through a sieve.

She heaves a sigh. Nothing to do but smile politely and wait for Fenris to make his way to the head of the procession, one slow step at a time.

Hawke forces her gaze to the bottom of the dais and jumps in her seat. Yellow eyes are staring into hers, cold and bright; a shock of gray, matted hair slips from an oft-mended cowl, and an ancient face rises to look at her, creased with deep furrows. One of them might be a smile.

A whisper runs through the procession, while the guards stationed on either end of the dais throw each other panicked glances from within their helms. Apparently no one has noticed the old woman hobbling up to the dais.

Jocelyn jumps to his feet. “What is the meaning of this?! _Guards!_ ”

“Wait,” Hawke blurts out, reaching for the prince’s elbow without thinking. “Let her speak. Please.”

Stupid, she knows, but she fears the woman more than she does the prince. Something in that yellow eye trained on her makes her blood run cold, and besides … a prince, a princess, and now a crone? The pieces are shifting, slotting themselves together little by little, and Hawke isn’t sure she likes the picture they’re forming.

At least her touch, brief though it is, seems to soften Jocelyn. “Then make haste,” he tells the woman with a dismissive flick of his fingers.

The witch—for what else could she be?—folds herself into a bow. “I’ve simply come to pay tribute, Your Highness, just like everyone else,” she replies with a voice like sandpaper. “A blessing, and a word of advice for the bride-to-be.” Her smile gleams inside the cowl like a yellow moon crescent, and Hawke has to suppress a shudder. “Listen carefully, girl: only when you fall can you learn whether you fly. Watch for that moment, and when it comes, do not hesitate to leap.”

The prince sneers before Hawke can even think of thanking her. “Piffle, predictably. Now begone!”

The crone totters out of the throne room. Hawke blows out a relieved breath despite herself, feeling as though she’s just passed a test of some sort.

Well, unless she’s failed it. She gulps.

To his credit, Jocelyn notices her dismay, though his words do little to endear him to her. “An old woman in her dotage, nothing more, although we are sorry that such pretty eyes as yours had to suffer her unsightly presence.”

Hawke doesn’t grace that with an answer. Her cheeks hurt with the effort of keeping the smile frozen in place, and the crone’s words are still whirling about her head when the next visitor makes his way to the dais in a few solemn strides.

 _Fenris_.

“An elf,” Jocelyn says, leaning forward with interest. “Today is full of surprises indeed. And what do you bring us?”

Fenris unsheathes his greatsword and drops to one knee in one swift motion, the blade perfectly poised on his fingertips as he lifts it over his head. “I would offer you this blade, Your Highness, and the hands that wield it.”

The blade is the same silvery white as his hair in the column of sunlight spilling down onto him. Her heart presses up against her ribs; it’s clever, so clever, and yet she hates that he’s doing this for her sake, surrendering himself to the will of another self-important prick who doesn’t deserve it.

As if on cue, Jocelyn sneers. “Since we take it you are not _literally_ offering your hands,” he says, steepling his fingers together as he considers Fenris, “does this mean we are to pay a stipend to our own gift? Feed and lodge our own gift?”

Fenris’s eyes dart to the prince. “I apologize if I have offended, Your Highness.” His expression is carefully impassive, and the blade balanced on his fingertips hasn’t budged, but Hawke knows him well: that near-imperceptible flick in the arch of his eyebrow says it all.

She forces a laugh, stamping out the urge to set the velvet seat of Jocelyn’s throne on fire. “Well, I for one would feel much safer with such a skilled warrior here to protect us,” she simpers, and though anger still churns at the bottom of her stomach, her voice sounds appropriately light and pleasant. “Wouldn’t you, Your Highness?”

Jocelyn turns to gaze at her from the hollows of his mask’s eyes, the garnet pulsing red on his brow. “Of course,” he says after a long pause. “Whatever our betrothed desires.”

Fenris is dismissed for now, but no matter: once this charade is over, all they need is to escape Jocelyn’s notice during whatever celebratory nonsense he has planned, then find their way out of this—Andraste help her— _fairytale_.

This is the last time she buys a book from the Black Emporium.

Such are her thoughts as the next visitor makes his way to the dais, a peregrine falcon perched on his arm. The bird is one of the few gifts that draw a genuinely enthusiastic reaction out of Jocelyn. “A most excellent gift,” he starts, taking Hawke by the hand and leading her to the top of the steps. The bird flaps its slate-coloured wings and tugs at its jesses. “This bird shall be yours, _très chère_. We do so look forward to hawking in company of our betrothed.”

“Your Highness is too kind,” Hawke says. The falcon turns its head towards her at the sound of her voice, and she notices for the first time that its eyes are shut. “What’s wrong with her eyes?”

The falconer inclines his head respectfully. “She has been seeled, Mademoiselle,” he answers, then when she casts him a blank look, explains: “Her eyes have been stitched shut till she becomes used to Mademoiselle, and then she shall be ready to take hawking. She shall serve you well, I promise.”

Heat rushes to her cheeks; on her perch, the falcon puffs up its feathers and lets out a nervous screech. “Oh, dear,” Hawke says, smiling so tightly her face hurts.

***

Scratch that: being a princess is a _nightmare_.

With the gift-giving ceremony over, Hawke hoped for the chance to look for Fenris, but Jocelyn only lets her go to entrust her to a small army of maidservants instead. “Do not mistreat her too much,” he says ominously, then leaves her to her fate.

This, clearly, is some kind of Orlesian torture. Her entire body is scrubbed raw, then slathered with perfumed oils, leaving her pink and glistening—and that’s the fun part. They pluck half her eyebrows off and pleat her hair into something resembling a bird’s nest, buns and braids leaving her neck aching from all the pulling and tugging. Then comes the pearl powder dusted over her shoulders and the top of her breasts, the red lacquer on her lips and the winged pencil on her eyelids, and then they cinch her into enough padding and brocade to make her upholstered _bergère_ pale with envy.

“Mademoiselle looks breathtaking,” exclaims one of the maidservants once they’re done squeezing her waist down to the girth of her staff.

“Well, this corset certainly is,” Hawke tries, her breaths shallow. The maidservants titter, curling a lock of hair here, tightening a ribbon there. The woman in the mirror looks like a stranger in her hooped skirts of gleaming, golden silk, her lips and eyes painted anew.

Will Fenris even know it’s her?

Not that it matters unless she escapes Jocelyn’s line of sight, but he crowds her the instant she steps into the banquet hall, escorted by her maidservants. “Ah, _belle! Belle à croquer!_ ” he exclaims as he hooks their arms together and leads her to the table of honour. He’s wearing an even fancier doublet now, slashed with crimson silk that shines with the same red as his garnet cabochon. “We fear the feast tonight will not be half as delectable as you are.”

Doubtful, but Hawke is in no position to ascertain this for herself: her corset thwarts her appetite after the first course, chestnut soup and bread still warm from the oven. Afterward she is reduced to nibbling on the procession of stuffed nug, baked trout, and wyvern pie, heaving a wistful sigh as each dish is cleared to make way to the next.

At least that gives her plenty of time to search the hall for a glimpse of green eyes and silver hair, but Fenris is not seated among the guests, nor is he standing with his back to the wall along with the rest of the guards. “I don’t see that elven warrior anywhere,” Hawke tries, while a leg of lamb cooked in ale and honey is carried away, practically intact. _You’re in a book_ , she reminds herself when she almost comments on all the food being wasted. _All that matters is finding Fenris_. “Shouldn’t he be celebrating with us, too?”

Jocelyn laughs. “Of course not. He has been sent to the barracks with the rest of the guard off duty.” He covers her hand with his, and she has to resist the urge to pull it free. “We should thank you, however. We might have found ourselves playing right into his hands by refusing him.”

Oh, great. As if a paranoid pompous fool wasn’t bad enough, he has to be a _paranoid_ pompous fool at that. “What if his offer is genuine?”

“We do not expect you to understand the finer points of politics, _très chère_. Do not trouble yourself.”

Hawke forces herself to take a long swallow of wine before speaking again. “Will you be releasing him from your service, then?”

Jocelyn swirls the wine in his goblet as he considers her, and it only occurs to her then that he hasn’t eaten or drunk anything: while the other guests have donned half-masks for the feast, his still covers his entire face. The garnet flares angrily—she’s not sure why that word occurs to her—and she flicks one hand without thinking, as if to bat the crimson glare away.

“If we didn’t know any better, we would think you want him for yourself,” Jocelyn finally says.

A breathless flutter of a laugh slips out despite the rigid boning of her corset. “You misunderstand me,” she says, even though he doesn’t, not really: oh, how many times has she revisited the past, dreaming of slender fingers in her hair, a glimmer of green vanishing under dark lashes as Fenris tilts his mouth to hers and seals their lips together again? “It’s just—I wondered—an elf, you know,” she finishes lamely.

The flickering light of the candelabras polishes his mask to a bright gleaming oval; she can’t even see anything in the eyeslits, but she has the unnerving certainty that he’s smiling underneath. “Fear not, _très chère_. He will be treated well till his execution.”

“Oh,” is all Hawke can say. Everywhere around them the guests are laughing and chattering, oblivious to their conversation: under the chandeliers their clothes is a shimmering sea of watered silk and embroidery, the scattered din of voices and tinkling glass twinned to the plucked notes of a lute somewhere in the hall.

She needs to find Fenris, and _fast_.

Hawke opens her mouth to excuse herself when the chamberlain brings a tasselled cushion, upon which rests a gift from her betrothed himself: a half-mask wrought of solid gold, shaped like a bird on the wing. Filigreed feathers fan out from a delicately fashioned beak, the eyeslits encrusted with tiny diamonds that catch and refract the light in coloured shards.

Jocelyn sets it in place over her face and ties the ribbon behind her head. “From this moment on, none but we shall gaze upon your lovely visage,” he whispers, then turns to address his guests, raising his goblet high. “A toast, friends, to our betrothed, whose kind heart knows no rival but her beauty! And now, let us dance and make merry!”

Her corset—her corset is too tight. Hawke struggles to catch her breath, fingers twisting into the bell sleeves of her gown, but Jocelyn sweeps her up in his arms, and together they whirl about the floor. She tries to free herself from his grip, but his hand is firm on her waist. “But we are only just getting started, _très chère_ ,” he says with fond reproach, and then sends her tumbling into the arms of a jeweled panther as the men swap partners.

The masks around her turn to snarling faces as she spins and spins and spins, their laughter pressing down on her from all sides. Time itself melts into the confused blur of the banquet hall: her feet hurt in their buckled shoes, but still the music continues, the ladies around her hopping in dainty little steps to the beat of a tambourine, skirts swelling like bells of shot silk and damask, their masks frozen in place while everything else is a welter of colour and noise.

Hawke can do nothing but dance, her body pulled into one step to the next.

Her current partner—a harlequin—spins her out of his arms, and she stumbles into the embrace of the next dancer. “Hawke,” he says as his hand slips around her waist, and her name in that voice pulses through her like a heartbeat. “How does it end?”

Maker, but she could cry. “What?” she stammers, her fingers weaving themselves with his of their own accord.

“The story,” Fenris continues, light on his feet as he leads her through the steps. “How does it end?”

She wouldn’t have known him, but for his voice and that emerald shine in the eyeslits of a silver wolf half-mask. His hair and the tips of his ears are tucked into a feathered beret, and he is dressed in hunter green, silver silk shining through the slashed sleeves of his doublet. A leather belt cinches his tapered waist, while breeches and high leather boots hug his slender legs.

Blood rushes to her cheeks. Maker have mercy on her, he has no right to look this dashing.

Fenris looks at her, and she knows the mask hides one dark, inquisitive eyebrow. “ _Well?_ ” he presses her, spinning her in a slow circle.

“I have no idea! I’ve never read it!” Hawke twirls once on herself, then finds her way back into his arms, the muscles of his shoulder firm under her hand as they sway from side to side. “You think we need to see this tale through to—to go back?” she asks, realization dawning on her.

“Do you have a better idea?” Fenris asks.

He lifts her up in his arms and spins her around once without effort, her skirts fluttering with the movement. “Something that doesn’t involve me finding out how the titular princess ends up as such?” Hawke replies over the click of her heels against the gleaming floor. “And Jocelyn intends to execute you.”

“So I gathered,” he sighs. “Very well. Meet me in the gardens as soon as you can.”

She nods, and her cheeks stay warm as they continue to dance; Fenris holds her gaze the way he hasn’t in years, his eyes dark and deep and very green within the silver filigree of his wolf mask. For a moment the guests around them melt away, the banquet hall with its great banners a blur of gold and velvety red. Hawke could stay here forever, with his hand steady on the small of her back and their gloved fingers intertwined, drinking in the intoxicating green of his eyes as they move together in slow circles.

Someone bumps into her as the rest of the dancers swap partners. The moment shatters amidst stumbling bodies and outraged exclamations, and Hawke has no choice but to leave the warmth of Fenris’s arms, her hands hollow as their fingers part.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I have most of the rest written out, and expect to complete this fic over the next couple of weeks. :D As always, I would love to hear your thoughts, and feel free to say hello on [Tumblr](https://aban-asaara.tumblr.com)! <3


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to the lovely [theherocomplex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theherocomplex) for beta-reading, and on such short notice too! <3

Claiming an urgent need to powder her nose finally gets rid of Jocelyn, but sneaking out of the banquet hall is no easy feat. Every other guest insists on a dance or an introduction, and the night is edging towards morning by the time Hawke loses her maidservant escort in the crowd.

At last she stumbles into the redolent air of the gardens. The breeze is welcome after the reek of perfume and sweat inside the hall, fragrant with green leaves and some flowers she’s never seen before. More guests are standing among the blooming hedges, talking in hushed voices over the song of the fountain; caprice coins glint as they are tossed into the water, the moonlight reflecting off the surface to web itself over the gardens. Fireflies blink in and out of the dark, and her heart aches, thinking back on Lothering and the little lights dancing above its streams, a lifetime ago.

A marble pillar whispers her name. She catches the glint of a wolf mask in the moonlight, and the ache in her chest blooms into a tender swell of relief. She casts furtive glances about her, but the guests are all too absorbed in their own trysts to notice her joining Fenris behind the pillar.

Just another pair of lovers, stealing away for a moment alone.

She lets the fantasy unfold in her mind for a moment: a princess slipping into the shadows with her lover the night of her betrothal, while her fiancé waits in the banquet hall just a few paces away. The scandal of it pools thick and hot in the pit of her belly, and she feels warm again despite the breeze on her bare shoulder blades.

Clearly Fenris has other matters on his mind, however. “I believe that door is our best bet,” he’s saying, indicating a door at the end of a cobbled path. A leafy arch somewhat obscures it from view, but too many eyes are wandering the gardens to risk breaking into the castle without distracting them first. “Locked, of course, though I’ve managed to lure the guards away.”

Hawke spots a darker form hidden between a wall and a bush of silvery blossoms, immobile beneath the glossy dark leaves. Two guards, she realizes, slumped together, just out of view of the party. “You’ve been busy,” she says.

“I ran out of caprice coins to keep myself entertained,” Fenris replies with a shrug.

Hawke laughs, but then hesitates, fingering the cuff of her glove. “What if—what if sticking with the story is our only chance to go back?”

“You said you don’t know what happens next.”

“I don’t, but princesses in stories don’t usually escape, you know? They get saved.”

Fenris looks at her. “What do you think I’m trying to do here?”

Well, then. She stamps down the urge to lift her mask off her face and let the heat banking underneath escape. “Leave it to me,” she says, then returns to the garden, her stride leisurely as she wends down the fragrant alleys. No sign of Jocelyn, thankfully, but the entrance of the banquet hall glows bright and yellow as molten gold, and she takes care of not wandering too close as she makes a show of admiring the moonlit blossoms. Not that she needs to pretend: they _are_ beautiful, vines festooning pillars and silver-thorned roses drooping on their stems, while clusters of pale flowers scent the air as they rustle in the wind.

Whispering an apology, she slips her hands into the branches of a jasmine shrub, bends the blossoms to her nose and breathes in their perfume. No one notices the tiny sparks of magic among the tangle of flowers; nothing more than fireflies alighting on a leaf to pursue their courtship away from prying eyes.

Hawke returns to Fenris, humming to herself. He’s leaning back against the pillar, arms crossed over his chest, watching the entrance to the banquet hall. The wolf mask shines dully in the night, and as she comes closer she has to resist tucking a wisp of silver hair that escaped his beret behind his ear.

“And now we wait,” she says, stepping back into the shadows of their pillar.

It doesn’t take long. Her sparks turn to flame, and the sharp, green smell of the burning shrub rises, drawing gasps and exclamations from the guests. “ _Au feu! Au feu!_ ” someone screams; a lady presses the back of her hand to her brow and falls into her companion’s arms. A man tosses the contents of his goblet at the shrub, not accomplishing much except splashing a woman’s silken shoes.

Fenris leads the way to the door; Hawke follows, hopping from shadow to shadow. A spell takes care of the lock, tendrils of heat spidering into the keyhole till the brass melts out of shape and drips down the smouldering wood. No one notices the door slip open, the guests all too busy dipping their goblets into the fountain to douse the fiery jasmine shrub.

The door shuts behind them, one last volute of smoke and flower fragrance slipping with them into the corridor.

And then they are alone.

They stare at each other, catching their breaths; a breathless laugh rises out of her for no reason, no reason at all, except that she’s with Fenris in a bloody _fairytale_ and she just set a jasmine shrub on fire and the moonlight is throwing specks of silver on his eyes. “Wait,” she breathes, bending down to remove her shoes, lest the ring of her coquettish heels betray them. He imitates her, removing his leather boots and his socks for good measure, the swirls of lyrium on his feet glinting in the moonlight.

They start down the darkened corridor. The music and sounds of the banquet seep to them distant and muffled, but all Hawke hears otherwise is her own breathing and the whisper of her skirts; Fenris’s half-cape flutters behind him, the large feather of his beret bobbing with his steps. The gleaming floors are cold through the soles of her silken stockings, but she barely notices as she glides upon them, the warmth of his hand in hers warding off the cold, even through their gloves.

When did they start holding hands?

Beyond the tinted panes of the hallway windows, the castle grounds stretch dark and wide under a large waxing moon. A pale ribbon of road unwinds from the castle walls into hillocks and meadows; mountains loom in the distance, dark against a sky bright with stars. After a few turns down the high-ceilinged corridors, the sounds of the banquet vanish completely. Nothing disturbs the silence, except their own breathing and the soft rustle of their footfalls.

The night shrinks to just the two of them. When Hawke steals a glance at Fenris she catches him looking at her, his mask bright in the moonlight. He drops his gaze, and she thinks she spies a flush darkening his cheeks.

The moment is too perfect to last. Metallic echoes bounce down the hallway like stones skipping on calm waters, and their quiet little bubble bursts.

Fenris pulls her back around the nearest bend. Hawke holds her breath, straining her ear to listen past the thunder of her own heart. Hushed fragments of Orlesian drift towards them, punctuated by the ponderous clang of armour. Guards on their round, most likely, their footsteps unhurried. She tries to will them away, but before long their shadows stretch within sight along the moonlit floor.

She summons fire to her palms.

Fenris grabs her sleeve to drag her down the hallway, and the spell fizzles out as she stumbles after him. Then she sees what he sees: a door just a few paces away, stanchions and velvet rope the only things standing between them and the dark interior. He vaults the rope without effort, drops his boots against the wall, then lifts her up while she gathers her gown in her arms, ruffles just barely clearing the rope.

They dive into the shadows gathered behind a statue. Fenris draws her close, his back to the statue, and the both of them grab fistfuls of her skirts so that all its layers of brocade and starched tulle will not spill past the pedestal.

“ _Venhedis_ ,” Fenris whispers. The _boots_ , Hawke realizes at the same time, but there’s no time. The footsteps are just beyond the doorway now.

“ _T’as entendu?_ ” asks one of the guards.

The orange glow of a lantern washes over the room: a gallery, gilt frames and sculptures flickering with the light. Hawke is pressed up so close against Fenris she can feel his heart hammering inside the velvet of his doublet; she holds her breath, her shoes still hooked on her fingers, her arms full of brocade and crinoline. No way the guards haven’t spotted the druffalo-sized pile of damask lumbering into the gallery, and the boots are right there next to the stanchions, black leather gleaming in the glow of the lantern. If the guard sees them …

“ _Juste mon imagination_ ,” he concludes with one last sweep of his lantern, and the gallery falls back into darkness.

The footsteps have long vanished down the hallway when they dare breathe again. Her gown falls free around her ankles as they unclench their fists and slump back against the statue, still tangled together. Fenris breathes a laugh, and the deep rumble of it hums through her bodice to drop inside her like a golden seed in dark soil, a tangle of heat taking root. Impossibly, the warmth of his hands on her waist seeps through her dress and its layers upon layers of silk, and for a split second when their eyes trip into each other Hawke thinks he’s going to close the distance between their mouths. He smells of lyrium and leather, and something sprightly and green, like vetiver.

Maker have mercy, her heart is beating faster now than it did when they were about to get caught. She tears herself from him, glad for the mask concealing the heat rushing to her face (perhaps there is a point to them, after all?).

Fenris straightens up and clears his throat. “In those fairytales of yours,” he starts, his voice pitched low, “the princess would stay put? Marry that man?”

Well, that’s one way to cut that train of thought short. “I suppose so,” she says, her skin crawling at the memory of Jocelyn tying the mask behind her head. “I’ve never thought how awful that’d be, somehow. It all just sounded so romantic for a backwater apostate: love at first sight, the damsel in distress rescued by her prince, true love’s kiss lifting the curse … Bethany”—a sharp, unexpected pang—“Bethany loved those stories.”

She can still hear her sister stifling her giggles as they huddled together in a fort of blankets, making up stories by magelight. It used to annoy Hawke, how Bethany’s heroines always had to be the most beautiful, powerful, beloved, but now she’s grateful Bethany got to live all those wondrous, extraordinary lives before her inglorious death.

Her breath catches in her throat. “Maker, I wish she could’ve seen this,” she finishes in a strained whisper.

Amazingly, Fenris touches her arm as if to steady her, and he doesn’t seem to mind when she rests her head against his shoulder till the swell of grief has ebbed away again. Is it the masks and gloves, she wonders, that make them seek the other’s touch now, when for years they’ve avoided it?

Or is it just that nothing here is real except as ink on the page of a book, somewhere in Kirkwall?

Hawke gives him a brittle smile. “Thank you,” she says, once she trusts her voice again.

He acknowledges her with a nod, but even behind the half-mask she sees the distance of years long lost in his eyes. “I wonder if …” Fenris shakes his head and leaves the thought unfinished, but she knows where his mind has wandered: half a world and half a lifetime away, thinking about his own sister, or maybe whatever tales might have been read to him once. After a moment he heaves a sigh, then looks at her again. “I am not sure I understand the point this story is trying to make. Waiting around to be rescued seems rather counterproductive—speaking from experience.”

“I think they’re lessons in what not to do, sometimes.” Stories of kings bringing calamity to their realm, she remembers, spurned women dying of heartbreak, curious children ending up in the Witch of the Wilds’ cauldron … “Then again, the youngest sibling is always the most virtuous one in those stories, and you just need to take one look at Carver to know that that’s bullshit,” she finishes, grinning.

Fenris laughs under his breath, but there’s something she can’t quite name in his voice when he speaks again. “All the more reason not to leave you at the prince’s mercy, then.”

That warmth again, that sweet ache singing inside her at his words. “If it can make you feel better, I’m fairly sure we’ve veered off course by now. I’ve yet to read a story where the princess sets the shrubbery on fire and runs off with the swordsman who just swore fealty to her betrothed.”

A corner of his mouth quirks beneath the mask. “Perhaps _The Randy Dowager_ has one such tale.”

Hawke laughs as she starts back towards the doorway. “You know, it’s really too bad the Black Emporium didn’t have any rare editions of the _Dowager_. We could be having a wholly different adventure right now.”

His laughter twins itself to hers. “Thank the Maker for small blessings, I suppose,” he replies, hefting a stanchion to let her pass, and together they continue down the moonlit corridor.

***

Lucky for them, the banquet must be keeping most of the household staff busy: the only other person they encounter on their way out is a scullery maid, who can’t quite conceal her amusement when they stumble out of the horse feed store, pretending to have gotten lost.

She offers to walk them back to the banquet hall, but Hawke answers with her best Dulci de Launcet impression: “A little fresh air will do me some good,” she slurs, clinging to Fenris’s arm and swaying on her feet.

“She’s had a little too much to drink,” he adds in a stage whisper.

Hawke hiccups for effect. “It’s not my fault I’m such a fea—zer … fea—dder—weight …” she retorts, but the scullery maid is already gesturing at them to follow, and then they are outside, easy as frilly cakes.

A pale sweep of cobbles the size of a small field stretches before them, lined by clusters of flowering trees and latticed enclosures shaped like miniature castles. At the far end, a wrought-iron gate is the only thing separating them from the rolling hills of the estate, the distant grass rippling in a gentle breeze. Hawke sees—and smells—what can only be stables and a coach house; after the smell of perfumed, sweaty bodies, the honest scent of hay and horse is welcome, reminding her of days long gone in Lothering.

“A midnight ride, perhaps?” Hawke asks, casting a glance towards the stables.

Fenris smirks under the snout of his half-mask. “After stealing his betrothed from the prince, I might as well add a horse to the tally. Stay here.”

_That poor princess never stood a chance, did she?_ Hawke wonders, watching him melt into the shadows of the trees by the coach house. A glimpse of that smirk and green eyes set in filigreed silver, and her own troth would’ve long been scattered to the winds.

A soft hooting voice calls out to her from the nearby enclosures. Hawke follows, curious. The grass is prickly through the soles of her stockings as she walks, her shoes still hanging from her fingertips. She peeks between the thin wooden slats and sees—

_A ghost_ , she thinks. A white round head is staring at her with amber eyes the size of sovereigns, and Hawke jerks away from the wooden slats when snowy wings spread, larger than her arm span. The creature dives from its perch to alight on a nearer branch, then seems to consider her, its round head tilting from side to side.

Hawke titters at her own ridiculousness. Just an owl, of course. A white owl stippled with black feathers, one of many birds in their mews. Most of them are mere dark lumps as they sleep in the fork of a branch or a nest, but the owl is awake, its yellow eyes tracking her as though she were prey.

At the end of the path she finds her betrothal gift: the peregrine the Orlesian falconer brought. It too is awake, its dark head twitching towards the rustle of her footsteps in the grass. Drawing near she sees it’s still jessed to the perch in its cage, that thin thread seeling its eyelids shut twisted behind its head. “Hi, there,” she says without knowing why, her heart aching when it chirps in answer. _This is just a fairytale_ , she reminds herself, but it rings hollow—and maybe, maybe _because_ this is just a fairytale, she sees no reason not to act.

She glances at the stables. Fenris hasn’t come back yet.

Hawke fiddles with the deadbolt and opens the cage. It’s large enough for her to fit inside if she bends herself in two; the falcon flaps its wings and screeches as she does so, visibly nervous. “I’m not going to hurt you, I promise,” she whispers, brushing a fingertip on the bird’s soft head. Her heart is pounding, the extent of her idiocy sinking in as she catches the glint of a sharp, curved beak and equally sharp talons in the moonlight.

Fairytale or not, she’d rather not get shredded to bits.

But the bird calms down, wings fluttering closed. Her fingers are trembling, but she takes a deep breath, then another, steadying herself before working the thread loose; gently, gently, she pulls it free, allowing the peregrine to open its eyes at last.

They are enormous, black pupils ringed with a thin band of gold. It spreads its wings as if to take flight, then looses a furious screech when its jesses hold it in place. “I’ve got you,” Hawke says under her breath as the bird beats its wings, “I’ve got you.” Careful to avoid the talons, she tugs the leather straps loose with jerky little motions, her heart pounding against the roof of her mouth.

The first one falls open. The falcon screeches and tugs at the remaining jess till she manages to untie it, then takes flight with an ear-piercing shriek the instant it’s freed. Hawke falls back on her behind as the peregrine swoops above her head, the wind from its wings brushing the hair out of her face.

Her bird—no, not her bird, not anyone’s bird—rises high, circles the courtyard once, then disappears into the night sky.

Fenris rushes to her side. “Hawke,” he says, helping her up. A horse waits for them on the cobbled path behind him, saddled and bridled. “Is everything alright?”

“Yes,” she pants, a wild trill of laughter rising up her throat. The birds have wakened in their mews, wings flapping and soft high calls punctuating the night. “Yes. I’ll be right back.”

Hawke forces herself to let go of his hand, still clutched around hers. She might as well be flying herself now: she runs back along the length of the path and flings the doors of the mews open one by one, leaving them hanging open in her wake.

Fenris is already mounted by the time she returns. The blood bay whinnies at her in greeting and pricks its ears in the direction of the birds’ noises. “I hope you do not mind riding pillion,” Fenris says, mouth hooked into a smirk.

A pale blur flits through the edge of her vision, and she raises her eyes to see the snowy owl soaring free high overhead. “Oh, but we would be _ever_ so honoured,” she answers, dipping into a curtsey.

Fenris chuckles. “ _Je vous en prie_ ,” he says, then pulls her up onto the horse. Her arms slip around his waist, the warmth of his body seeping through his doublet and half-cape as their mount’s hoofbeats echo through the courtyard. She only remembers her mask long enough to tear it off and drop it to the cobblestones; Fenris does the same with his own, and as the horse trots towards the gates, Hawke lifts one open hand, bright shards of magic fanning out of her fingers as a simple force spell bursts them open.

They’re _free_.

The birds wheel about the sky, invisible but for their silhouettes blackening the sweep of starlight above, the owl’s ghostly streak like a comet in the night. Hawke laughs a breathless laugh despite herself—they’re not safe yet, not with the shrinking castle still within sight—but with the wind in her hair and handfuls of plush velvet warm between her fingers, she feels as light and airy and wild as the birds spinning their slow wide circles overhead.

Fenris nudges the blood bay off the road to the rustling grass instead. Less noticeable that way, but they still keep quiet for a long time, as though the breeze could still carry their voices back to the castle looming at the edge of the black horizon.

Her buttocks are numb from the horse’s trot by the time Hawke dares speak. “What now?”

“Let us put some distance between us and this Jocelyn first,” Fenris answers, and she can picture the contemptuous curl of his lip as he says the prince’s name. “With some luck we will run into some town or village, then find out more about what manner of spell is keeping us here.”

As good a plan as any, she figures. They can’t very well hope to ride to the limits of this world and leap back across into her Kirkwall estate, gown, doublet, blood bay and all.

Although … there _are_ worse fates than being a princess riding her love’s stallion in the warm night, her breasts pressed against his shoulder blades and his hair tickling her cheek.

Hawke closes her eyes, and for one sweet, magical moment, _pretends_.

  
Art by [Rory](https://badpriestessofbuttsburgh.tumblr.com/post/186387353979/because-i-just-read-the-second-chapter-of) (thank you so, so much! <3) 

She finds herself smiling against his shoulder. “At least I could not ask for better company to get stranded in a fairytale with,” she says into the velvet of his doublet.

Fenris laughs, quietly, but she feels the low thready rumble of it against her chest. “Still, I hope you demand a refund for that book once we’re out of here.”

“From Xenon?” Hawke grins. “That might just get us in even worse trouble than we’re in right now. What if he sics his urchin on us?”

Another laugh, to her delight. “Or _worse:_ Chauncey the tiny bear.”

“Hmm, there’s a thought. I could use a tiny bear.”

“Hawke, the last thing you need is a tiny bear,” Fenris retorts, but she can still hear the smile in his voice. “Or any kind of bear, for that matter.”

“Oh, but I do. And Maker’s Bark needs a friend. Maybe I can demand a tiny bear for our trouble instead of—”

Something yanks her hair so hard her neck twists. The milky sweep of stars and the rustling hillocks jerk out of place, and the ground rushes up to slam into her. Her mouth tastes of copper; something hot and thick trickles down the back of her head, and a sharp, burning pain blossoms across her scalp. Somewhere in the night, the horse screams.

“ _Hawke!_ ” Fenris calls out.

Hooves rustle through the grass. Hawke pulls herself up once she finds the ground, then turns her head towards the sound, her neck stiff and painful. She blinks up a few times at the figure standing before her, and only then does she realize that it’s not Fenris at all.

Jocelyn lifts his gloved hand, and a gyrfalcon alights on his arm. The pain in her scalp pulses at the sight of its talons. “How sweet, how delightfully _naïve_ of you to free our birds, but you should not have troubled yourself,” he says, a dozen riders forming a circle around him as he speaks. How in the _Void_ did so many men sneak up on them? “The bond between falconer and bird is such that no leash is needed.” As if to prove his point, he scratches the gyrfalcon’s head, and something like betrayal pierces through her when the bird closes its eyes under his touch.

Fenris slips into the tightening ring of riders and drops on one knee in the grass next to her. “You are a dead man,” he tells Jocelyn, helping Hawke up to her feet.

The prince tosses his head back and laughs, the garnet on his mask scattering fragments of moonlight dyed red. “Are we? From where we stand, _you_ are the quarry, and we, the hunter. Admittedly, we did not expect you to be so bold as to leave during the banquet … although perhaps we should’ve expected no less after the lustful looks that passed between you two. But no matter. Few things are more enjoyable than a nighttime hunt.”

Fenris huffs; Hawke breaks into laughter despite herself, a flare of anger sending the blood rushing to her face. The right side of her body now throbs with dull pain, the shock of her fall wearing off. “Oh, I can think of a few, but you wouldn’t know about that, would you?”

Jocelyn clicks his tongue. Another bird swoops down with a feathery whisper, aiming for Fenris’s face. The ornate armour and tack of the riders flare with the pale bright blur of his markings, and the bird’s talons curl into the streak of light left in his wake.

Hawke blinks the afterimage of the lyrium out of her eyes, then catches the gleam of moonlight on steel. “ _Mais qu’est-ce que_ —” one of the riders stutters when his own sword slides out of its scabbard, but too late: Fenris has already driven the blade under the man’s mask, and the horse rears as the rider slumps dead in his saddle.

“Hawke, _now_ ,” Fenris says, and Hawke’s hands are full of flames.

She spins on herself once as though she were still in that ballroom, Fenris’s hand on the small of her back, and fire bursts around her in great whooshing gouts. The horses stomp and neigh and buck in their fright, their riders struggling to control them. The gyrfalcon rises into the night sky together with the plumes of swirling sparks, the heat rippling the silver disc of the moon.

The garnet cabochon flares wildly in the flames. Jocelyn’s mask floats before her, awash in the orange glow of the fire. Beyond the bright fiery ring of her magic she hears him—

_Laughing?_

Yes—a cruel laugh arcs out of the welter of flames and panicked horses, and then her fire starts spinning, coiling itself around her like a ribbon, tighter and tighter. Hawke tries to wrest the spell back under her control, but the magic keeps slipping away, parting around her mind as she gropes for purchase, then weaving itself back together again just out of reach.

Anger surges through her, heady and bright. _You have no right_ , she wants to shout at the mask hovering amidst the flames, her outrage as fierce as it is useless. _It’s_ my _spell_. But Jocelyn claimed her magic the same way he claimed her hand: with the self-serving ease of someone who’s never been told _no_.

The grass smoulders at her feet, singeing the hem of her dress. The heat is nigh unbearable, but Jocelyn winds the spiral of flames tighter to himself, and Hawke has no choice but to take a step forward, then another.

He lowers his open palm.

Fenris calls out her name, somewhere outside the conflagration. The fire closes in on her from all sides, just shy of licking her skin. Hawke has to squint against the heat as she reaches for the prince’s hand, and his fingers close around her wrist when a shriek rends the night in two.

A blur swoops down on him, clawing at his face.

Even Jocelyn does not see it coming. His hold on the spell slips as he jerks back; barely more than a stumble, but it’s enough for Hawke to claim her flames again and send them scattering through the night. The peregrine falcon flies off, the garnet pulsing in its grip: the gold mask is hanging off its talons, twin moons shining bright before it lands somewhere in the grass, forgotten.

“Ah,” Jocelyn says, his fingers sliding down the empty space where his mask was just a moment ago. “How embarrassing.”

It takes Hawke a moment to understand what she’s looking at, because there’s nothing to look at.

_The prince doesn’t have a face_.

Her entire mind recoils from the realization as one might from a ledge. She stumbles back, dizzy. Fenris shouts something, but the words break apart before she can make sense of them, vanishing one by one into the faceless face floating above her.

“Well, then,” a cavernous voice says, booming from the empty starched ruff of his collar. “You leave us no choice.”

Jocelyn leaps off his horse and keeps going _up_ , the black sweep of his cape blotting out the sky. _Run_ , Hawke wills herself, _run away_ , but her body is slow, too slow, the grass under her feet stretching into an endless smouldering swath as she attempts to twist around.

Clawed hands seize her by the waist. The ground drops off from under her feet as the prince heaves her up into the sky, and then they’re flying, the hills and the pale strip of road shrinking beneath the howling wind. A shoe slips off her foot and falls to the ground far below, and she catches one last glimpse of Fenris fighting off the riders before the curve of a hill hides him from view.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am REALLY excited to share this part, and I hope you guys will stick with me for the last one! I’ve drafted it already, but it’s a bit longer and I have a busy weekend ahead so it might not be ready for next week ... but I’ll try to keep the wait as short as possible. :D
> 
> Kudos and comments welcome, as always, and feel free to say hello on [tumblr](https://aban-asaara.tumblr.com/)! <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, many thanks to [theherocomplex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theherocomplex) for all her help! I really hope this last chapter will be worthy of the wonderful reception this has gotten so far. <3 Onwards!

They’re flying _away_ from the castle.

Somehow, this one thought detaches itself from the whirlwind in her head: they’re not going back to the castle, where Jocelyn might have simply donned a new mask and forced her to dance till her legs gave out. A known evil, at least. The dark horizon looms that much more ominously at the end of the blurred tunnel around her.

Her ears ache; her eyes water, wide open despite the smarting winds. Each breath turns into a forceful gulp of bitter cold air, fighting for space with her thundering heart inside her ribcage.

Another thought, spinning like a leaf: how long would it take before she hit the ground, were Jocelyn to drop her?

But his grip is fast around her waist, a claw or two piercing through her corset to prick the skin of her stomach. Her fists are clenched to her sides; she refuses to touch him, even as they fly, impossibly, towards the snowy peaks edging closer. For a moment she thinks the prince will soar over the craggy spine of the mountain range, but then their destination comes into view: a spire overhanging the rock face, clawing its way into the night sky. Tall arched windows glow with a flickering light on the curved wall of the tower, like a lighthouse gone wrong.

Jocelyn sweeps inside through one of the gaping windows. Hawke’s legs buckle under her weight when her feet touch the floor, but she scrabbles away from him, eyes darting around for an egress of some sort and finding none. Save for the windows, the round room is bare and smooth. Not even a trapdoor in the floor or ceiling—not that she’d have any hope of reaching it.

His tall lithe form faces her from across the room. “We regret you should have seen us in such a state of undress _before_ our union,” he says, laughing lightly. Torches burn bravely despite the wind twisting around the room, but their light sinks into the hole where his face should be. “Highly inappropriate.”

Staring into that gaping void makes her want to scream, but Hawke doesn’t dare tear her gaze away from him. “What the _fuck_ are you?” Her voice is a rasp, her legs shaking despite herself. She lost her remaining shoe somewhere, and the cold floor bites through the soles of her stockings.

“Ah, _très chère_. Why make it harder on yourself? All you need to know is we _always_ get what we want,” he answers with a tone of gentle reproof.

“And what is that?” she forces herself to ask. She really, _really_ doesn’t want to know.

He adjusts the cuff of his leather falconry glove. The hem of his cape flutters behind him in the gusts of wind that rush through the window. “Nature is beautiful, don’t you agree?” Hawke simply glares at him, not that he seems to expect an answer. “There is nothing more beautiful, more _moving_ than the pathos of nature fighting for itself, nothing purer than the wild uncontrollable urge of _instinct_. Every bird we tame, every wild horse we break is a duel of wits against the simple, mindless, brute strength of nature.”

“That’s just _cruelty_ ,” she snaps, remembering the thread seeling the peregrine’s eyes. “You make me sick.”

Jocelyn laughs, that hollow, charnel laugh. Even the flames of the torches shudder at the sound. “Our point exactly. The instant we laid eyes on you, we saw that wildness inside you begging to be tamed.” He takes a step forward; Hawke recoils, till her shoulder blades are pressed flat against the cold, hard curve of the wall behind her. “You would be our most glorious achievement. It might take a hundred, a thousand years, but you _will_ be our wife and you will _love_ us.”

The torches gutter, then go out, taking Jocelyn’s silhouette with them. Hawke clambers to her feet and stumbles blindly about the room. All she can see are patches of varying darkness undulating before her eyes, spreading then shrinking. The windows are arched swaths of starlight at the four cardinal points. Nowhere for her to go.

“A fitting name you bear,” the prince says, his voice winding itself around her. Hawke whips her head around, trying in vain to pinpoint its source. “And now you know how a hawk is tamed.”

A strip of darkness brushes her bare shoulder. “Get away from me!” she yells, stamping down the urge to fling a fireball into the dark. Instead she kicks and scratches, but none of her blows connect, fists and feet swiping through empty air.

A laugh, right at her ear. “With her eyes seeled, even the wildest bird can learn to obey her master.”

Jocelyn’s laughter coils itself tighter around her, swift and sinuous as a snake. Hawke tries to pull herself free, but she can’t scream, can’t even find the floor beneath her feet. The darkness roars as it holds her captive, drowning even the rhythmic rush of blood pounding against her eardrums. For a moment she can’t even tell whether her eyes are open or closed, so dense is the indistinct wash of obscurity around her; then she’s certain she’s staring right into Jocelyn’s empty face, and squeezes her eyes shut.

Big mistake.

Something runs along the edge of her lashes, thin as a heated blade, and whatever force held her in place lets go.

Hawke crumples to the floor. Faint reddish splotches come in and out of view as her eyes rove beneath her lids. Slowly, slowly, she brings her fingertips to her eyelids; the pain is gone just as quickly as it came, but her eyes are clamped shut, her lashes stitched together like the seams of a dress.

The only sounds in the room are her own ragged breathing and the soft hiss of the torches, now burning anew.

A rustling sound, as though the prince were dusting himself. The click of his boots draws near, and Hawke flinches away despite herself. “See? You’re behaving yourself much better already,” he says, somewhere above her. “Not so hard, is it? Soon enough you will make a most docile bride.”

Her head snaps in the direction of his voice. “Over my dead body.”

“Then you will remain thus, for only the kiss of our union will allow your eyes to open again. A shame—such a lovely shade of blue.”

Hawke imagines herself kissing the carved lips of the gold mask, the malignant light of that garnet pulsing bright against her brow. She barks a harsh, bitter laugh at the incongruity of it. “And with what mouth do you intend to kiss me? You have no bloody _face_ ,” she says, spitting the last word.

At once she regrets her words. Jocelyn cups her jaw in his hand, tilting her face up towards himself. Even with her eyes closed she can _see_ the faceless hole bent over her: the little grayish spots dancing on the inside of her eyelids blink out, leaving nothing but black darker than the Void itself. “You will just have to find out, won’t you?” he says, amused. He lets go, and Hawke falls back to the floor. “Now, if you will excuse us, we have an appointment to keep with a certain friend of yours.”

A bright dart of fear pierces the revulsion choking her. “ _No_ ,” she says, pushing herself up on all fours. “Not Fenris. _Please_.”

“Ah, you are doing so well already!” He pats her cheek, and Hawke cringes away from the touch. “We would take you along, but you would not see anything for yourself anyway. Now be good; we will return as soon as his execution has been carried out.”

She scrambles after the click of his boots. “ _Wait!_ ” she cries out, but there is no answer save for the snap of his cloak as he flies out the window.

No time to lose. Hawke stumbles to the wall and starts pawing at the stone. _This is a bloody fairytale_ , she thinks as she makes her way around the room. There _has_ to be a secret passage, hidden somewhere in the lines of grout, but she feels for an indentation, a switch, a draft, _anything_ , and finds nothing. She even gives the sconces a tug, nearly dropping one of the lit torches on her head, and still not a thing stirs in the room.

It remains infuriatingly quiet, while all about her the wind sings its high mocking song.

After groping for a trapdoor for the better part of half an hour, she finally admits defeat, and rests her head against the windowsill. Beyond her eyelids the sky is lightening, her vision slowly cycling through paler shades of gray. _There’s an exit_ , she thinks, but she doesn’t need to see the foot of the cliff to know she wouldn’t survive that drop. Maybe dying here would return her to the real world, to the cozy, firelit library of her estate, but she’s not willing to take the risk, nor is she willing to let Fenris die here any more than she would be in Kirkwall.

Maker, let Jocelyn be bluffing. Fenris was still fighting the riders before he disappeared from view, after all, and if anyone can give a dozen armed, mounted men a run for their coin, it’s him.

But the prince’s men are hardly the problem, are they?

Hawke sticks her head out the window, inhales a lungful of clear, too-sharp air, and screams: “ _MAKER’S BALLS!_ ”

_Balls, balls, balls_ , the mountain calls back, and Hawke lets out a strained, brittle laugh despite herself. If— _when_ —she returns home, she’ll toss the blasted book at Xenon, she decides. See how well that old bag of bones fares against a glorified bunghole.

A shriek shears through her woolgathering. The sound of flapping wings descends upon her, and she falls back on her rump, startled. Another call, right from the sill this time—the same cry that rang through the night just before the mask was ripped from Jocelyn’s face.

She pushes herself up on her knees and crawls to the window again. “You’re—you’re that peregrine, aren’t you?” The falcon chirps once, as though in answer. Hawke stretches one hand out, slowly, and smiles when her fingers brush soft feathers. “Thank you for your help. Sorry I got myself in even worse trouble, though.”

The bird butts her hand with its head, then looses another screech that sounds almost … annoyed?

“You’re one to talk. You can just fly out this window anytime,” she retorts, then shakes her head, laughing. “Maker, I’ve completely lost it, haven’t I? I bet there’s no bird or book, and I’m just sitting somewhere in my estate, rocking myself back and forth and cackling to mys— _hey!_ ” The falcon catches the sleeve of her gown in its beak and gives it a sharp tug. “What’s that for?”

It’s gone from the sill before she knows it, wings beating the air as it starts pulling at her skirts instead. “Stop it!” she says, earning herself another irritated screech. Then the bird dives out the window, and its calls grow fainter and fainter as they echo off the sheer mountain cliffs.

She’s well and truly alone now.

Hawke forces herself to her feet, her throat tight. The soles of her stockings whisper along the floor as she gropes her way back to the window, hands stretched out in front of her. Her fingers touch stone, rough-hewn and cold, and curl around the sill. The bird shrieks once, closer again, then twice, and she imagines it circling the wide bowl of the valley before her, stippled feathers fluttering in the last echoes of its own voice.

She leans forward to listen, while the wind tugs at her hair and raises gooseflesh on her skin. The mountain must be playing tricks on her. The call leaps from everywhere at once, a cacophony of shrieks and hoots and screeches crisscrossing the wide space between the cliffs.

And then she hears the flapping of wings.

No trick of the mountain, this. The noise swells, and she realizes this isn’t just her bird but an entire flight of them, riding the winds towards the lone spire in the mountains.

“Oh, shit.” Hawke stumbles back as the first few rush through the open window. At once the room fills up with the soft swift whispers of Maker knows how many birds, flight feathers brushing her cheeks and bare shoulder blades as they spin all about her. “What are you—what are you all doing?” she chokes out, not daring to move.

One bird seizes her sleeve; another, the hem of her skirt. The others follow suit, talons and beaks pulling the trimmings of her brocade gown and even the ribbons in her hair, wings beating at her back so that she has no choice but to take a step forward, then another.

Her hands close around the sill, and a hoary wisp of a voice speaks through the whirlwind in her head.

_Watch for that moment, and when it comes, do not hesitate to leap_.

Her heart sticks in the hollow of her throat. The birds keep pulling at her sleeves and hems, forcing her arms up and lifting her skirts. “Oh, for the Maker’s sake,” Hawke says, her voice wavering, “did it have to be a _literal_ leap?”

Good thing she can’t see to the bottom of the valley at her feet, not that it’s much help. Her hands fumble to clutch the mullions; her legs shake as though with a bout of ague, but she manages to lift one foot off the floor, haul herself atop the sill, and slide the other foot after her.

Her toes grip the edge. She braces herself on the mullions, and then she’s standing on the windowsill amidst a flurry of beating wings.

  
Art by [Lethendralis](https://lethendralis-paints.tumblr.com/post/186720828571/till-we-from-winter-wake-33) (thank you so, so much! <3) 

The wind curls around her and fills her skirt like a bell fills with sound. A whimper seeps from her lips, but it doesn’t even reach her ears: the wind itself trembles as a great thunderous roar rises from the valley, and even with her eyes shut she’s aware of something enormous, something ancient rushing towards her on wings large enough to raise storms. The hoots and shrieks and screeches rise to a high dizzying note all about her: _now_ , they seem to say, _now_ , the entire tower humming with the voice of a hundred wild things screaming, and Hawke knows the moment has come.

She leaps.

The howling wind snatches her scream in midair. She falls in a fluttering billow of skirts, the breath whooshing out of her when she flops belly first onto a large, scaly back. Thick leathery skin ripples under her hands as the dragon beats its wings once, twice; it rises and rises, and Hawke scrabbles for purchase as she slides down the ridge of the beast’s thorny spine.

Her hands close around some sort of horn. There—she hauls herself from scale to scale along what must be the dragon’s crest, till she finds the dip between its enormous shoulder blades and huddles there, hanging on for dear life.

At least she hardly feels the bite of the cold now, even as tears trickle out of her eyes and stream along her temples. They’re flying faster than the wind, tearing through the distance like a shooting star through the night, and the power loosed with each beat of the dragon’s wings, each slow sinuous curve of its body fills her with such awe as she’s never felt before. Even through the scales she can feel the slither of mighty muscles beneath her body, like an underground river of molten rock burning its way through its own unknowable paths. In her mind’s eye, the mountain range and grassy knolls and wisps of clouds are a blur, streaked with the last of the starlight and a faint golden band of sunrise.

Maker, how she wishes she could _see_.

Her hair comes undone and snaps in the wind. Hawke pictures ribbons trailing after them like the tail of a comet, and she realizes she’s laughing, bright little hiccups that fill her lungs with air sharp as needles.

The dragon dives down much too soon. Through the deafening rush of the wind Hawke makes out panicked shouts, and the dragon answers with a roar so loud her entire body thrums with the force of it. Instinctively, she presses her cheek to the hot surface of its hide and tightens her grip on the scales. A blast of heat blows past her as they hurtle downwards, her body lifting as though it weighed nothing.

She’s almost jolted off the dragon’s back when they land. Something crumbles nearby; men scamper about in their armour, shouting orders that go unheeded. The dragon bites and swipes, jerking Hawke left and right. An arrow whizzes past her ear. The dragon lifts itself in the air again with one great flap of its wings, and it’s all she can do not to fall. Another burst of heat nearly singes the eyebrows off her face, but she buries her head into the crook of her elbow and holds on as tightly as she can.

The acrid stench of fire and smoke rises, while below them the screams die out one by one in the merciless roar of the conflagration.

Hawke loses her grip when the dragon alights again. Her palms are slippery with sweat, and she can’t find purchase as she slides, bouncing off a leathery flap of wing and landing on her rump. “That’s going to leave a bruise,” she mutters, buttcheeks throbbing despite the layers and layers of skirts and petticoats cushioning her fall.

The dragon snorts above her, a growl rumbling from its throat. Waves of heat roll off its body, and a smell like incandescent metal tickles her nose. Even without seeing she’s aware of its presence, the solid, ancient weight of it. It’s so big she can hear each mighty beat of its gigantic heart—unless it’s her own, pounding loud enough the air thrums around her.

On the bright side, the dragon shows no sign of wanting to eat her, but better not tempt fate. Hawke pulls herself up to her feet, rubs her bruised bottom, and dusts herself off. Then she sweeps one foot in a wide arc before risking a step forward, hands stretched out in front of her. She repeats the operation till her toes brush a lump of some sort, wincing as charred clumps crumble under her foot. Not the sort of death she’d wish on anyone, picture book or not. Still, she forces herself to poke at it with her toes, trying to determine the best way to skirt around it.

She’s so focused on this one body she doesn’t expect another to lie in her way. Her foot catches, and Hawke finds herself ankle deep in roasted Orlesian. “Shit, shit, shit, ass, balls, _shit,_ ” she mutters, leaping from one foot to the other to find clear ground again. She trips and starts tottering, spinning her arms in futile windmills.

A snap, and she skids to a halt. Her body slants forward dangerously, tiptoes barely touching the ground. The dragon snorts again, its breath hot as a furnace on her back and the nape of her neck; it caught the bow tied at the small of her back in its teeth, she realizes, but before she can ponder her predicament further the dragon lifts her off the ground, then dumps her unceremoniously a little farther away.

Hawke lands on her abused buttocks again. “ _Ow_ ,” she starts as she pushes herself up. “That’s going to leave an _even bigger_ bruise now.”

She’s barely back on her feet that a gigantic snout nudges her forward, and she stumbles into what must be an open doorway. What little light seeps through her eyelids dims even more, and a cold draft blows towards her, raising the hairs on her arms. Somewhere behind her, the dragon huffs, almost in encouragement.

Hawke isn’t sure why a dragon should care, but Fenris is inside, she’s certain of it.

The darkness inside is thick, the silence even thicker, and the air wafting to her is damp and musty. She gropes her way to a nearby wall, shuddering at the cold, moist stone under her fingers. No dragon to save her arse if she falls to her death this time, so she shuffles along and breathes through her mouth to stay as quiet as possible, like back when she used to play hide-and-seek with the twins. _Ready or not, here I come_ , she thinks, shuddering at the thought of what might be hiding on the other side of her sealed eyelids.

The darkness swallows her.

Her toes find empty space after a few steps. A staircase, spiraling down. She grabs the hem of her skirt with one hand, braces herself against the curved wall with the other, then starts the slow climb down, toes feeling for the edge of each step.

The stone is so cold her feet go numb, but she keeps going, only stopping when she thinks she hears a faraway voice or muffled scream. Her imagination, no doubt: every time she’s only met with silence and the dark beat of her own pulse. Moisture starts trickling down the mortar lining the stones before long; her fingertips brush something mushy, and Hawke shudders, wiping her hand clean on a damp stone. Then she continues.

Her movements have just found a rhythm when her foot meets the floor where she expects the edge of another step. Hawke stumbles forward, biting back a scream, but finds the ground again.

The bottom of the staircase, finally.

Now what?

She stretches her hands out in front of her to reorient herself. Torches burn a reddish colour through her shut eyelids, the flames popping and cracking every now and then. After a few unsure paces she finds a wall, and allows herself to lean against it for a moment.

Damn Jocelyn to the Void. All that just to climb down a staircase, and she could be stumbling right into his arms long before she ever finds Fenris.

_And that’s exactly what he wants you to think_.

Hawke breathes in the mineral scent of the damp stone, then pushes herself off the wall. Jocelyn may have clipped her proverbial wings, but her will is intact, and she’s not giving him the satisfaction of letting it atrophy. She has a handsome elf in a doublet to rescue, after all.

Left or right? _Eeny, meeny, miny, moe_ , she chants silently, _catch a druffalo by the toe_ —

The faint sound of bird wings cuts the rhyme short. Hawke whips her head towards the sound. A small chirp beckons, deeper into the dungeons.

A trap? No—she discards the thought at once, remembering her falcon swooping down on Jocelyn and the birds tugging at her skirts, her sleeves, the ribbons in her hair. She follows the call, one hand still splayed on the wall, straining her ear to listen: things are scuttling about in the dark, and water sluices down the walls. Every time she thinks she’s lost her guide, she catches the sound of beating wings again, a little farther down the damp hallway.

After a few minutes of steady, if slow, progress, the bird starts chirping at her, almost impatiently. “Easy for you to say,” Hawke whispers as she rounds a bend. “You can actually _see_ where you’re—”

She hears it then: a low rumble, rising from the bowels of the dungeon.

Footfalls, hammering down the hallways.

_Shit_.

No choice. She lifts the hem of her gown and starts running. The soles of her stockings are worn to their barest shreds, the flagstones painfully hard under her feet, and she winces with each stride. The bird chirps as it flies ahead, but her own ragged breaths make it hard to hear.

Its calls disappear around a corner, and Hawke readjusts her course too late. Her shoulder slams into what must be the bars of a cell. The blow rouses the bruises from her fall off the blood bay, rusted iron scraping her bare skin aflame. She stumbles to the floor, tripping into her skirts as she tries to push herself back to her feet.

“ _Attrapez-la!_ ” A jumble of exclamations and footsteps somewhere ahead stops her dead in her tracks. She’s cornered. The rest of the guards are gaining on her, the clang of their boots thundering down the maze of the dungeon—

“ _Hawke_.”

Her heart somersaults at the voice. She clutches the bars and clambers to her feet, stumbling towards its source. “Fen,” she pants, funneling magic to her open palms. “I can’t _see_ , Fenris, I need you to—”

He understands. “Two men, to your left!”

Hawke whirls around, sending flames whooshing down the hallway. Fenris yelps, but there’s only indignation in his voice when he speaks again. “Your _other_ left!”

She stammers an apology, but Fenris shouts her name, just as someone twists her arms behind her back with a triumphant laugh. A haphazard pulse of energy is enough to send the guard stumbling back, and a few airy strands of magic harden between her hands as Hawke sways on her feet, unsteady. Another guard shouts something about needing her alive; she hurls the spell in the direction of his voice, and stone crashes into metal and bone with a loud crack. A sword clatters to the ground, followed by a meaty thud.

The other guard collapses to the ground with a wet choking sound, somewhere nearby. Poor sod must have wandered too close to Fenris’s cell.

But the rest of the prince’s men are just around the corner, the flagstones shaking beneath her feet with their approach. Hawke staggers away from the tumult, till her shoulder blades strike cold metal bars.

A whiff of lyrium cuts through the coppery scent of rust.

“Good,” Fenris says, almost into her ear. Arms, strong, familiar, clasp her between the bars. “Now the rest of them.”

His hands cover hers to guide them. Hawke can see the magic in her mind, clear as day: a hundred, a thousand crackling coils of lightning twisting between her hands, trying to squirm out of her grasp and spring to freedom. “ _Now_ ,” Fenris says, the word warm on the curve of her neck, but she gives it another half heartbeat, spooling even the magic gathering at the farthest reaches of her mind into the swelling orb of light.

The spell wobbles like a spinning top when Hawke releases it.

The very air cracks. A wild flare of energy bursts free, and Fenris stumbles back, his arms tightening around her waist as she slams against the prison bars. The whoosh of power sweeping down the hallway is deafening, almost enough to drown the screams and the clang of armour being hurtled against ceiling and wall.

And then— _silence_.

Hawke pants, the air tasting of thunder on her tongue. The spell has left her empty as a becalmed sail; she sways on her feet, her head lolling back against the bars. “Alright, so it’s not usually the princess who does the rescuing,” she starts, breathing a tired laugh, “but see? Someone _did_ come for you, Fen.”

“Hawke,” he says for sole answer, her name hoarse as it brushes the curve of her neck, and then they’re both scrabbling through the bars to hold each other, hands clutching fistfuls of velvet and brocade in a clumsy embrace. The reassuring tang of lyrium and leather tickles her nose, and Hawke finds herself close to tears as a giddy rush of relief loosens all the knots inside her. His muscles are tense under the velvet of his sleeves, and the hard, stuttering spurts of his breathing match hers, close enough she feels their warmth on her mouth. They stay there for a moment, foreheads tilted against each other, not quite touching between the bars.

Fenris only moves to cup her face in his hands. He removed his gloves at some point, and his palms are warm on her cheeks, the lyrium singing to the fronds of magic now sleeping curled under her skin. “Your eyes,” he says, the words taut with anger. Her eyelid twitches when he brushes her lashes with his thumb.

Hawke wants to see his face more than she’s ever wanted anything in her life. “Some sort of spell. He meant to … to keep me tame,” she finishes in little more than a whisper, glad she doesn’t have to look at Fenris.

His fingers tense around her face. He mutters something—Tevene, but she gets the gist from his tone: probably something involving dragonthorn in uncomfortable places. “When he took you, I …” His voice cracks; he clears his throat. “He will pay, I swear it.”

Good thing her eyes are sealed shut, because she’d have to blink back tears otherwise. “Are you hurt? What happened?”

“I am unharmed, no thanks to Jocelyn. Hawke, the stone has to be the source of his power.”

Behind her eyelids, the garnet cabochon pulses with its crimson glare. She shudders. “The gem on his mask?”

“Yes. The riders were … guarding it, I believe. Getting past them was the easy part, but it did not like my attempt to destroy it, to say the least. When I came to, I was here. Whatever this Jocelyn is, he cannot be defeated by conventional means … though I confess I was eagerly awaiting his return so that I could at least _try_ ,” he finishes, not without a hint of amusement.

Hawke laughs despite herself. “Aw, and instead I’m the one who came for you.”

“Indeed, such a letdown,” he says, chuckling. “Thank you.”

He’s still cradling her face, and she’s still clutching his sleeves; it takes every last whit of willpower to let go. “Thank me once I’ve gotten you out of this cell,” she replies, grinning.

Her pulse trips when Fenris takes her hands to guide them to the lock on the door of his cell. Heat rises to her cheeks; she’s glad for the touch of cold, hard metal after the warmth of his callused hands, and hopes the dim torchlight is enough to conceal the flush of colour on her face.

She feared her magic exhausted, but it pools inside her palms again. Wisps of ice wrap around the lock, thickening till the metal cracks apart under the pressure. The door swings open with a mournful creak.

The dim spots of gray torchlight shining through her eyelids go out. Hawke’s stomach drops.

“ _No_ ,” Fenris says, the lyrium of his markings stirring her magic, and something like a gust of wind sends her flying across the hallway.

Her body never strikes stone. It feels like she’s in free fall, like that one endless moment after she leapt out of the tower window, a flight of birds screaming around her.

“ _A-roving the wild things go_ ,” sings the wind, except it’s much too dense and much too _dark_ to be wind, a black ribbon weaving itself around her. “Oh, you wild, _wild_ little thing. We never once thought you would find your way out of our tower, much less into this place.” The darkness folds itself over her face; it slithers down into her mouth and up her nose, like black waters drowning her. Fenris shouts her name, but the darkness fills her ears, and all she hears after that is that hollow voice thrumming deep inside her skull. “We underestimated you … or did that blasted witch meddle again?”

Her lungs scream for air; her eyeballs pulse behind their sealed lids, agony pounding against her temples. She scrabbles to cast a spell, but as soon as she catches the faintest gleam of magic the darkness snuffs it out, turning it to ash between the unraveling shreds of her awareness. Before long the edges of her mind are so dull she can’t even pierce through to the Fade anymore.

“The instant we laid eyes on you, we saw that wildness just begging to be tamed,” Jocelyn continues, his voice a vast, slithering thing coiling around her. “But if you will not submit willingly, then we will just have to do it the _hard way_.”

A brief flash of light pulses once through her eyelids. Fenris, she thinks, freed, his markings like a torch in the night. She reaches for the pale blur moving before her, their fingertips brushing once. “Fen—” she gasps, but a last whorl of darkness seals itself around her, and then—

And _then_ —

And then she _sees_ , and it’s the most beautiful thing: everything around her is silver and gold, so bright she has to squint against the wavering gleam. Flowers sway from tendrils of vine as though in greeting, their fragrance sweeter than ambrosia, and the dew on their petals are tiny little pearls, shimmering with their thousand colours. Her feet glide upon the floor, a disk of liquid gold that ripples under each of her steps to guide her into a hall made of light.

Swirls of music and peals of laughter welcome her, tinkling like bright silver bells. The walls around her are lattice, delicate as hoarfrost; pale arches sweep high into the night, and from the milky expanse overhead hangs a chandelier, each twinkling crystal a star.

She could stay here forever.

All around her people are dancing, ladies with their bellflower gowns and butterfly masks. Someone takes her hand and pulls her into the dance. She twirls once upon herself, and then another hand twines itself with hers. A warm wind teases her hair, redolent with jasmine; she doesn’t feel the floor beneath her feet as she wheels about the starry hall, the spicy fragrance of night flowers lifting her, and then she’s flying, _flying_ , painting arabesques in the sky till she tires of it and returns, gladly, to the outstretched hand beckoning far below.

She alights upon that white-gloved wrist, and smiles back at the golden face shining above her. The garnet blazes on its brow, the one splash of colour in a hall of gold and shimmering pearl. They hold hands as they dance, and then she spins away again, soaring so high this time her wingtips nearly touch the stars hanging from the chandelier and—

_Hawke._

For a moment she forgets how to fly. She can’t remember the steps, or even find the gleaming floor beneath her feet, and so she starts falling instead, wings flailing till a flash of crimson catches her eye.

Safe. She is safe. She finds the rhythm of the dance again, and lets it carry her down, fluttering, to that patient wrist.

_Hawke._

A name—her name?—but no matter: the hand still beckons. Anger surges through her at whoever dares interrupt her dance, her night, her flight. The voice keeps calling out her name; she tries to ignore it as she descends again, but it’s ruining everything: the hand is all _wrong_ , she sees now, and in the glare of the gemstone the smile doesn’t look like a smile at all—

_Hawke._

The hand beckons.

And she strikes.

The garnet cabochon comes off, heavy in her talons. She lurches in the opposite direction, though not before glimpsing the mask cracking down the middle: it sheds its two golden halves to release black, billowing columns that unfurl through the sky in pursuit. Around her, the arches of the hall crack open like a flower. The gold-spun lattice tears, and the stars go out one by one as the swirling arms of the chandelier melt into the night.

Hawke flies, a mere wingspan ahead of the whorls of darkness. She flies as high as her wings allow, then higher still. She dives down and glides up again, darting away from the great black sweeps chasing after her. The garnet pulses crimson in her grasp, angry, _furious_ , but still she flies: she flies across vast swaths of night sky, across emerald strips of land and glittering blue seas, wingtips brushing white foaming crests when she swoops down again. Tall black cliffs rise from the water in the distance; she sweeps above the rusting, dripping chains of the harbour, heavy with limpets and barnacles, then rises along the dark strip of stairs cutting across her city, till the chokedamp-stained roofs turn marble white.

Her wings have grown stiff, her flight erratic. The darkness blankets the city after her, but she’s almost there: a roof among so many others, collapsed amidst green gardens growing untended.

She falls into the beam of moonlight spilling into the foyer. The billows of darkness rush after her, smothering its milky glow. Her grasp slackens around the garnet, but she sees the pale wintry glint of lyrium streaks against bronze skin, and she knows she’s made it.

Home, to that beloved hand.

Their fingers touch. Hawke falls into Fenris’s arms, and the last thing she sees before the darkness claims her again is the garnet in his palm, crushed to shards.

***

She’s still in his arms when she stirs awake. Hawke knows that scent of lyrium and leather at once, the velvet beneath her cheek fragrant with it. The sun is warm on the crown of her head, and a gentle breeze blows as he carries her, her body rocking gently with his steps.

_Just five more minutes_ , she thinks, burying her face into his doublet, but an old voice pulls her out of her doze.

“See? I told you she would come to, lad.”

The witch, Hawke realizes, which means—

“Wait, so we’re still in that bloody book? Oh, _flames_ ,” she mutters, finding her eyes still shut.

She squirms back to her feet, but stumbles back into his arms almost just as fast. “ _Festis bei umo canavarum_ ,” he breathes, a sigh of relief washing over her hair. “You frightened me.”

“Sorry,” she says, hiding a sheepish smile into the curve of his shoulder. “Is Jocelyn gone now? Didn’t we destroy that gem?”

“He is, and you did,” the witch confirms. “Just as I suspected you would. The nature of his powers was such that I couldn’t confront him myself, but nothing kept me from enlisting some … _help_ , as it were.”

“What _was_ he?” Fenris asks, keeping Hawke steady. Maybe she shouldn’t have gotten up so fast after all.

“A man, nothing more, but no man can withstand the influence of the Malgrenat for so long.”

“So the gemstone consumed him,” he states, not quite a question. The witch makes a noise of agreement.

Hawke snorts. “That’s the most Orlesian thing ever. ‘Ah, let us stick ze ominously named stone to our face, hon hon hon.’” She attempts to pry her eyes open with her fingers, but they remain stubbornly sealed along her lashes. Sighing, she drops her hands back to her sides. “So what now?”

The witch cackles. “Greedy, are we? You’ve destroyed a powerful artefact and prevented its influence from seeping from this world into yours—is that not reward enough?”

“Well, returning to the world in question would be nice, for a start,” Hawke retorts, not quite managing to keep the heat from her voice. “So would being able to open my eyes again.”

“Oh, you can figure that out for yourselves, I have no doubt.”

That cackle again, and Hawke realizes that the witch is _leaving_. “Wait—” she blurts out, but it’s too late: the aftershock of a spell ripples over them, and the flap of immense wings raises a gust of wind so powerful she stumbles back.

The dragon roars once, somewhere in the distance, and then the only sounds are the grass rustling in the breeze and the shrill cries of insects and birds.

Hawke turns her palms over then drops her hands back to her sides. “That’s it? ‘Figure it out for yourselves’? We do her bidding and then we’re just left stranded in a bloody picture book for our trouble?”

“Hawke—”

Even with her eyes sealed shut she sees red. “You’d think a _witch_ could help us back to Kirkwall, but _nooo_ , that’d be too easy of course, it’s not like she used us to do her dirty work or anything—”

She only realizes she’s been pacing when she starts tottering, the grassy slope beneath her feet steeper than she thought. Fenris catches her arm to steady her. “Hawke, it is fine—”

“No, Fenris, it’s not fine,” she retorts in his general direction. “‘Fine’ is the last thing this is. That arsehole would’ve had you _killed_ , and now we’re stuck here all because that witch tricked us, and she couldn’t even be bothered to at least lift the spell he cast on me, and—and oh, Maker, that dragon I rode was actually an old lady all along—”

Fenris clasps her arms and pins her into place. “ _Hawke_.”

The rest of her words hang in the air, forgotten. She can feel him, very close, strands of silken hair brushing her brow. The warmth of his breath washes over her lips. “Fen?” she whispers.

He cups her face, his fingers sliding into her hair. “You said the curse is always lifted by a kiss.”

Hawke breathes a faltering laugh. “Did I say that?” She can’t recall. She can’t recall much of anything at all, in fact, with his lips so close to hers.

“You did,” he replies, and she can _sense_ the smile on his mouth. “And … I would try, if you will let me.”

_Three years_ , but the kisses exchanged between them have been so few she still has them all committed to memory: the first, beneath the rustling vines festooning the gates of her estate; pinned against the wall, frantic, feverish, unwise; and then that night, that too-short night spent skin against skin, thinking it was just the beginning.

Every fiber of her being yearns for his touch again, but she’d rather stay here, stranded and seeled, if she’s going to be granted another kiss knowing it’s the last.

“Will you … will you stay this time?” she whispers in answer.

His thumb slowly draws the curve of her cheek. “There is nothing I want more.”

_Yes_ , she mouths. _Oh, yes_. No need to even use her voice this close; the tips of their noses brush when she nods once, and then his lips are on hers, tentative, almost shy. An apology, she thinks: if it were spoken in words it would be stammered with lowered eyes and restless hands, but then she twists her fingers into the velvet of his doublet and pulls him even closer, and the kiss flares from ember to flame.

_Definitely an apology_. The past three years are folded into this kiss, three years of pent feelings and regret burgeoning into renewed hope. His hands tilt her head back; her lips part under his as though the shape of their mouths were made for each other, gentle heat gathering in the seam of their bodies. Forget Jocelyn and his imaginary banquet hall: _this_ is the real fairytale magic, kindling radiant stars beneath her lids, and maybe, maybe she can live with her eyes sealed shut for the rest of her days if Fenris will just kiss her like that, over and over again.

By the time he lets their mouths part, Hawke is out of breath, her knees nearly buckling under her weight. His breath hitches between his lips.

Fenris’s eyes are so green, she forgets about the spell being lifted.

Strands of silver brush his lashes; the faintest crease between his dark eyebrows gives way to a lopsided smile. The library of her Kirkwall estate has settled back around them as if they’d never left: the titles gilded on the leather-bound spines glint in neat rows around them, Maker’s Bark still sleeps curled up on the couch, one paw twitching, and Bodahn is whistling to himself somewhere in the adjoining parlour.

No more corset cinching her waist, and no more velvet doublet. Instead, her hands are curled into the brushed linen of that shirt she’s seen him wear half a hundred times over the years.

It’s softer to the touch than she expected.

She smiles, her heart close to bursting. “When did you change your mind? Or was the lure of a free ride back to Kirkwall worth putting up with me?”

His eyes stray to a corner of the room, somewhere above her shoulder. “Three years ago,” he sighs. “I was a coward, and when you recited that poem … I realized I’d been making excuses.”

_So till we from winter wake, upon your hand I long to rest, and these wilds at last forsake_. “You—you heard that?” she asks, heat creeping up her cheeks.

“I did.” He glances at her, then smiles, sheepishly. “And—well. I suppose a stranger claiming your hand brought a few things into perspective.”

Hawke grins up at him. “If I’d known making you jealous would do the trick, I’d have started rumours or something long ago.”

Fenris laughs under his breath, then looks at her, his eyes soft. “Hawke. I am sorry.”

No reason why she shouldn’t kiss him as soon as the thought crosses her mind: she gives his collar a tug to close the distance between their lips, and revels in the surprised noise he makes into her mouth. His hands move to her waist and pull her closer; there’s none of his earlier hesitancy now, and the golden brilliance behind her closed eyelids grows hotter and lower this time.

But first things first.

“You’re forgiven, but you _do_ owe me three years’ worth of dates.” Hawke only leaves his arms to slam the thrice-damned book on the table shut and clasp the metal fastenings closed again. “How about we stop by the Black Emporium as a first couple outing?” she asks, smirking above the embroidered silk of the binding. “A double date with Xenon and a stonefist spell, maybe?”

Fenris readjusts his shirt, a slanted grin spreading on his lips. “Chauncey the tiny bear awaits.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I first learned about seeling while doing research for an unrelated project: the practice was thankfully abandoned in the Middle Ages in favour of hoods, but the imagery was too fitting to pass up for a creepy fairytale with a prominent bird-of-prey motif. :D
> 
> This is one of those stories that grew a life of its own and took me way out of my comfort zone—I’m not 100% confident about it (making my POV character unable to see for ten pages seemed like a much better idea in theory), but I certainly had a lot of fun writing it, and I really, really hope you guys enjoyed it, too! <3
> 
> (Yes, I’m just conveniently ignoring the fact that Hawke has already gotten the same prophecy from Flemeth and most likely got to ride her dragon form while escaping from Lothering. And I know Chauncey the tiny bear doesn’t actually appear in DA2, but I blame Varric.)
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, and I’d love to hear your thoughts, as always! Feel free to say hello on [tumblr](https://aban-asaara.tumblr.com/) as well! <3


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